Input and Editing of Force Profiles of In-Contact Robot Motions via a Touch Graphical User Interface

Various automation tasks require the precise specification of forces/torques over time and space to be applied to the environment. Traditionally, only experts can provide such specifications, contrasting the need for intuitive robot programming in small and medium-sized enterprises. This paper presents a concept for extending kinesthetic robot programming to allow users to program motions in contact with the environment. In this context, four novel input methods enable non-experts to input and edit force/torque profiles graphically via a touch device as a function graph. A user study compares the input methods regarding duration, accuracy, and workload. In addition, the system's intuitiveness and usability for programming in-contact motions are evaluated. Even for a small sample set (N = 20), the evaluation of the System Usability Scale (SUS) showed a high median result (82.5). Thus, the promising results indicate that the presented programming system is usable and intuitive for non-experts.